South East Asia pinning hopes on electric cars

The Angkor EV 2013 has hit a production snag after its Hong Kong-based backers pulled out.

The Angkor EV 2013 is a sleek looking vehicle that looks like it belongs in a future designs show, rather than the streets of Phnom Penh.

The car's maker, Heng Development, says there is no shortage of interest in the new electronic car, from across South East Asia - but it is yet to get the money to start commercial production.

There are many people who want to buy and use the cars. But now our company is unable to produce the vehicles to meet such demand." said the car's designer, Nhean Phalleok.

So the company is planning to ask the government to help set up a large scale factory to produce electric Angkor cars.

Nhean Phalleok, says it can reach speeds of up to 60 kilometres an hour, and can run for up to 300 kilometres without a recharge. It's got GPS, smart-phone integration, and keyless ignition.

And the price tag is a relatively cheap, at $10,000.

The Angkor EV looked set to go into commercial production, until a Hong Kong based company withdrew support to build up to one-thousand of the vehicles and, as yet, no new international investors have stepped up.

Nhean Phalleok has a strong belief in the viability of his creation.

"I believe that the people in Cambodia are happy to use electric cars because of a number of benefits. Firstly, it's easy to park because it's a mini-size car.

"Secondly, they're 80 per cent cheaper to run than petrol powered cars." he said.

Hidden costs

But not everyone loves the Angkor EV 2013.

Professor Grahame Holmes, an innovation specialist at RMIT University in Melbourne, is sceptical about the car's supposedly cheap price tag.

The fundamentals of an electric car remains the battery. You need to have a relatively expensive battery, which has a relatively short lifetime, in order to be able to drive the car. " he said.

Professor Holmes says electric car batteries currently have a life span of between five and seven years and are a significant expense for the driver.

"A $10,000 electric car, that means he's really produced a very low cost battery option. And I think that's the big challenge to see whether that's stable and viable that he's chosen to use." he said.

The cost of an electric car battery can, however, be offset against savings on petrol - which is expected to rise in price as demand increases and supplies fall.

That's especially true in Asia, where developing nations are expected to more than double energy use by 2035 - a third of which will be expended in transport.

Up to now, many Asian nations have had big fuel subsidies in place.

But some econimists and academics believe that is an expensive bandaid, not a solution

This is a big problem for Indonesian government at the moment." said Dr Rimawan from Indonesia's University Gadjah Mada

"The cost the fuel subsidy now itself is one third of central government budget. I think that last year it reached about 26, 25 per cent. But now it's 30 per cent. And obviously it will increase exponentially." he said.

Even with the savings on petrol, Professor Holmes says there are other costs to take into account.

"We have an infrastructure cost for a petrol car, which we regard as normal around the world. There's service stations, and there's tankers, there's mechanisms to distribute petrol.

"People forget that that infrastructure's built up over many, many decades to the point where it's now ubiquitous around the world. There's isn't any such infrastructure for an electric car yet in place." he said.

E-Trikes

The Asian Development Bank is working on a different project it says will result in electric vehicles that are cheap, viable, and clean.

Rather than making cars - it's opting for electronic motorised tricycles, that can reach speeds of 45 kilometres an hour.

The ADB's Sohail Hasnie is heading the project in the Philippines and says a cheap electric vehicle has become something of a Holy Grail in the automotive industry.

"Everybody in the world is trying to develop a car. Everybody is coming up with a $30,000 car, and that needs to run up to 300 kilometres on a single charge, should be a reliable, family car.

"And because it's $30,000 to $40,000 , and globally everyone is giving subsidies, we thought: let's start from the base of the pyramid." he said.

Mr Hasnie says he's aiming to get 100-thousand E-Trikes on Philippine roads by 2016 - and says one of the biggest drawcards is how cheap they are to run.

"It costs you about $5 to run each of those [petrol tricycles] a day, say roughly five-litres of fuel. If you converted that to electric, it needs about five kilowatts an hour worth of fuel, which costs mostly a dollar, or $1.20. So you save about $4."This is quite significant for those whose take-away income can be in the vicinity of $5 to $6." he said.

But even at $4,500, most prospective drivers would not be able to pay for a petrol tricycle upfront.

Mr Hasnie says they will be available on a hire purchase scheme.

Every day they save $4, from the $4 they might give back $3. So that's how will own it over the next five years." he said.

Project organisers want the scheme to be expanded to include solar recharge stations, and then eventually, to other developing Asian nations.